Chad - 2020 Elections
Chad will hold parliamentary elections on December 13 after a five-year delay blamed on terrorist activity, the National Independent Electoral Commission (CENI) announced Feb 14, 2020. The current National Assembly was elected in 2011 for four years and is largely dominated by supporters of President Idriss Deby, who took power in a rebellion in December 1990. Deby has defended successive postponements of the poll because of the “terrorist threat” posed by Nigerian radical jihadist movement Boko Haram.
Parliamentary elections had been postponed since 2015. During the 2011 legislative elections, the ruling MPS won 118 of the National Assembly’s 188 seats. International observers deemed that election legitimate and credible. Since 2011 legislative elections have been repeatedly postponed for lack of financing or planning. As of mid-2019 Legislative elections in Chad were scheduled to take place by the end of the year, but this did not happen. They have been postponed several times since 2015 as Deby, who took power in 1990, looks to maintain his grip on the country. The present parliamentary members of Chad, whose four years tenure was supposed to end in June 21, 2019, had practically completed two tenures. This was due to the some problems including insecurity, especially Boko Haram facing the country, which made Chad to close its borders with Libya, Sudan and Central African Republic, while declaring state of emergency in those borders.
Repeatedly postponed legislative and local elections in Chad will finally take place in the first half of 2019. President Idriss Deby, who had ruled the country since 1990, made the announcement 01 January 2019 during his New Year’s address. Should elections take place, they would be the poor but oil-rich state’s first legislative elections since 2011. The vote had originally been scheduled for 2015, but due to delays, the sitting parliament’s mandate was extended by a constitutional law. However, opposition leader Saleh Kebzabo said it was not up to the president to decide the date of the vote — that was the responsibility of the national election commission (CENI).
The legislative elections had been postponed several times since 2015. The Patriotic Salvation Movement (MPS, in power) has strongly criticized the "foreign injunctions calling the government to assume its responsibilities" for the holding of this election. The US Embassy had indeed welcomed the commitment made by the power to hold elections "this year", but also stressed "that it is essential that the entire electoral process is credible".
The Chadian opposition, divided and weakly represented, welcomed the American initiative. Thus, the National Union for Development and Renewal (UNDR) called "the other Western powers to follow suit in the United States to call on Chad to comply with its democratic principles." For its part, the Party for Freedom and Development (PLD) deplores "that the Chadian government is not able to organize legislative at a fixed date and that the Western powers dictate it to hold elections," said a responsible for this opposition party, Mahamat Ahmat Alhabo.
The Chadian government’s priorities include organizing elections in strict compliance with the regulatory blueprints, President Idriss Déby said in N’Djamena on 29 May 2019. He said as part of consultations to that effect, the state will release an envelope of CFA30 billion from its own coffers. Deby told members of the electoral commission that the state’s first disbursements were made to the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) and the Permanent Bureau of Elections, which received CFA900,000,000 and CFA436,640,000 respectively.
Legislative elections in Chad planned for November 2018, were postponed to May 2019, a member of the electoral panel organising the vote told AFP 13 November 2018. The voting date had been pushed back several times in the central African state. The original mandate of the legislature expired in June 2015, but has been prolonged. "We have scheduled the holding of the legislative elections for the month of May according to our timeline, which will be examined and possibly adopted on Friday," said Abdramane Djasnabaille of the election commission (CNDP). The 15-strong National Framework for Political Dialogue was formed in April and is made up of members of the ruling majority and the opposition.
By 2019 Eastern Chad was in the grip of a cycle of violence between nomadic camel herders - many from the Zaghawa ethnic group from which Deby hails - and sedentary farmers from the Ouaddian community. While drought and population growth have aggravated the conflict, Deby has also blamed the influx of weapons from conflict zones in neighbouring Libya, Central African Republic and Sudan for the upsurge in violence.
An internet blackout was ordered by the government led by President Idriss Déby. Leading the central African nation of 14.9 million people for almost 30 years, Déby was controversially re-elected in 2016, with a similar online blackout lasting for eight months following his victory. This time round, controls over the Internet appear to have started after proposed constitutional changes were agreed at a conference in March 2018, allowing 66 year old Déby to remain in power until 2033.
Chad President Idriss Deby said 07 July 2019 he was lifting social media restrictions which were imposed more than a year ago for "security reasons." "For some months, security requirements led the government to toughen access conditions and control measures for electronic communications," Deby said in a closing address to a digital forum in the capital N'Djamena. "These measures were imposed in a context of terrorist threats (but)" the current situation " leads me ... to instruct the firms concerned to lift immediately the restriction on electronic communications," said Deby.
In Chad, the security situation was of increasing concern. In the face of continued lawlessness in parts of the north and escalating intercommunal violence in the east, the Council of Ministers decreed a state of emergency in the northern province of Tibesti and in the eastern provinces of Ouaddaï and Sila on 19 August. On 21 August, the Government announced the closing of the country’s borders with the Central African Republic, Libya and the Sudan, leaving a small numbe r of official crossing points open along each border. On 10 September 2019, the National Assembly extended the state of emergency in the three provinces until January 2020. On 11 November, the government security forces signed an agreement with the Miski self-defence committee in an attempt to end the fighting that had broken out in Tibesti several weeks earlier.
In September 2019 Deby ordered the president of the Election Commission to organize the legislative elections before the end of January 2020 at the latest. An electoral deadline several times postponed since 2015. Idriss Deby seemed in a hurry this time to organize legislative elections, postponed several times since 2015.
Progress continued to be made towards the holding of legislative and local elections in Chad, which had been postponed repeatedly since 2015. On 3 July, the National Assembly passed a new electoral law in line with the statute on gender parity of 2018. On 12 September, the President, Idriss Déby Itno, appointed a new executive bureau for the national political dialogue framework, which started revising the electoral law to shorten the legal deadlines to hold elections before the end of 2019, as requested by the Government. On 3 October, the National Independent Electoral Commission announced that legislative elections would most likely be held in the first quarter of 2020.
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